"Gyanesh Kumar Must Resign Immediately”: Rahul Gandhi Alleges Vote-Rigging, Attacks ECI

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that the Election Commission’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls amounts to an attack on voters’ rights, following a report that raised questions over the exercise. “This is not just an attack on the vote, but an attack on the basic expression of every single Indian person,” Gandhi said, as he criticised the poll panel over the SIR process.

Gandhi called for the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. He added that the CEC had failed in his duty to protect the vote and that his actions are an attack on the Constitution of India and democracy.

Additionally, he alleged that Prime Minister Modi and the Home Minister are "on top of this conspiracy" and will be investigated.

This press conference comes a day after an Indian Express report highlighted objections raised by two Election Commissioners over decisions and orders linked to the SIR process and other electoral matters.

It revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months to steps taken by the poll panel; the two commissioners had questioned certain decisions as being taken without their knowledge and had raised concerns over changes to procedures related to electoral rolls.

Under the title of "Destroyers of Democracy", Rahul Gandhi listed Gautam Adani, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, Home Minister Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as the conspirators against democracy.

Gandhi, while alleging 100 per cent rigging of elections, questioned the lack of anti-incumbency sentiment for the BJP. He said, "There is no democracy on this planet where anti-incumbency does not exist. Yet this political force has been missing in India," and "Anti-incumbency does not happen to Modi."

Alleging corruption in the Election Commission, the Congress leader said, "If the vote has been destroyed, then the constitution has been destroyed; thus our laws are illegal, which makes our institutions meaningless."

Charging vote-chori, Gandhi added, any law passed with the vote of those MPs who have won their seat in the parliament as beneficiaries of vote-chori should be considered illegal and unconstitutional.

Presenting a timeline, Rahul Gandhi explained various incidents that he deemed to have contributed to the present situation. Starting from the 21 December 2023 law that made the CEC immune to investigation, to the vote-chori campaign led by Gandhi through 2025, to the eventual disagreement of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi with Gyanesh Kumar.

He concluded that the current situation of the country has never existed since Independence, "our elections are fundamentally broken, and the laws passed by parliament are open to question due to the vote being destroyed."

"This is an act against the Indian state and India's people. We refuse to sit silent while this happens," said Rahul Gandhi while naming those involved in the EC controversy as "deshdrohis".

The Congress leader has called for the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar and an investigation into the involvement of PM Modi and Amit Shah in the case.